Just realized — I’ve been using a Mac mini (i7, 16GB) with an “SSD–HDD” hybrid as my desktop workstation since October last year. That is, what Apple calls a 1TB Fusion Drive. In reality, it’s 265GB (or 128GB?) SSD and a 1TB laptop (slow, 5400 rpm) HDD.
Thing is, this hybrid actually runs fast. So fast that subjectively I don’t notice a difference from the honest SSD in my portable MBPR. Before this, I spent a long time with similar hardware but with separate SSD and HDD of roughly the same sizes. I see no speed difference at all, and in terms of convenience — there’s just no comparison. Previously, I had to do all the balancing manually, and trivial things like a 70GB Dropbox folder were a real problem. And I had to constantly monitor to keep the SSD from filling up — messy business, in short. Now it’s beautiful, everything happens automatically and magically.
In terms of reliability for this setup, I haven’t noticed any problems either. Nothing broke on its own, and when I had to restore everything from backup, it just worked — the hybrid didn’t cause any extra quirks during restoration. I’d actually forgotten it was dual-natured until I remembered today and decided to share with you.
Bottom line: highly recommend — cheap (compared to a 1TB SSD) and quite capable.
This post was translated from the Russian original with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.